Video: New Trump accuser speaks to WaPo about early 90s incident; Update: Second accuser speaks at presser

AllahpunditPosted at 2:01 pm on October 14, 2016

If I’m remembering right, not one woman who’s accused him so far has asked the reporters she spoke with for anonymity. They’re all on the record, including Kristin Anderson in this splashy new piece from WaPo. That’s risky when electoral passions are running as hot as they are but they all seem to understand there’s no chance they’ll be believed if they don’t take that step.

The video below explains what happened, according to her — it’s exactly what Trump described on the “Access Hollywood” tape — but you need to read the piece for clues about credibility. Of note:

Anderson, who said she doesn’t support Trump or Democrat Hillary Clinton, did not initially approach The Post. A reporter contacted her after hearing her story from a person who knew of it, and she spent several days trying to decide whether to go public.

You can fit that fact into arguments pro and con about whether she should be believed. Pro: She didn’t shop the story around. If the Post is telling the truth, she’s a reluctant witness here. Con: A major paper dangling an offer of above-the-fold coverage is quite a lure to produce an account that’s sensational.

Two different friends claim that Anderson told them what happened years ago, one a few days after it happened and the other in 2007. Anderson isn’t sure who she was with the night she encountered Trump or even what club it happened at; she thought it was the China Club and “Googled old photos of the club and found an image of a room crowded with the kind of couch she remembered.” As it happens, WaPo found an old Newsday story that called the China Club “Donald’s Monday-night nest.”

More on credibility:

Anderson knows that because she has come forward, her personal life may be intensely scrutinized. She shared the fact that there have been rough spots. She has been twice divorced. In her breakup with one boyfriend, the couple placed restraining orders on each other. She was granted custody of their 5-year-old son.

Interestingly, Anderson was a registered Democrat until May of this year, when she switched to unaffiliated. Team Trump denies the accusations, of course, calling them an obvious publicity ploy. Exit question: Is this Gloria Allred’s new client or is that a different, as yet unknown woman?

Eventually, she was offered a job for half of what she and Trump had discussed. When she reached out to ask him about it, he allegedly told her never to use his private number again, in spite of asking for hers on multiple occasions.

“This caused me a great deal of pain and anguish and I felt the need to confront Mr. Trump and ask him to apologize for his behavior,” she explained. “I also thought that he might have been embarrassed by his behavior and this would provide him the opportunity to clear the air.”

Because of that, in April of this year, she made calls and sent emails trying to get ahold of him to give him the chance to speak to her about what happened almost a decade ago.

Will she produce the emails to corroborate that she tried to confront him about this before today?